How Constitutional Council Evaded Handling Prof OLIVIER BILE’s Petition To Relieve President BIYA Of His Duty, For Lack Of PHYSICAL And MENTAL Capacity To Rule

  Also, President BIYA  In His End Of Year Address To The Nation On December 31, 2025, Again Promised Appointing A New Gov’t, This Time Around, “IN THE COMING DAYS”. But It Is Now Weeks. GECAM Mounts Pressure On President BIYA  Not Only To Appoint A New Gov’t, But One That Is Really A Rupture With The Past. GECAM Wants Real  Change, And Not Cosmetic Change With The Same Failed  Persons.

Cameroon’s Constitutional Council headed by Clement Atangana, on Tuesday, January 13, 2026 dodged or evaded to handle a petition that was filed by the National President of ‘Les Liberateurs’  Party (former UFP), Prof Olivier  Bile,  to demand that  Paul Biya  be relieved of his duty of  President of the Republic, on the grounds that  the President  who will officially be 93 years old  in March 2026, no longer has the mental  and physical capacity to rule the country. He said this has been the case in the last five years, and that from all indications, President Biya had since ceased being in charge.

Prof Bile did address a correspondence concerning his petition to the Secretary General of the Constitutional Council, Mounder Gabriel, and registered the petition or document at the registry of the Constitutional Council. Bile in the document cited Article 55 (3) of Law No. 2004 /004 of 21 April 2004, on the Organization and functioning of the Constitutional Council, modified by Law No. 2013 / 015 of 21 December 2013. All these, according to Bile, give the Constitutional Council the power to be able to decide on the removal of the President of the Republic from office, if there are concrete evidences, that, he no longer has the capacity to continue to rule the country.

It should be noted that the issue of a decline in the physical and mental capacity of a man in his 90s, or even 80s, is but natural, as it has to do with age. It is not an insult, it is nature. We all saw in 2024 with President Biden in the United States, who is in his 80s, and wanted to run for a second mandate.  But the American people, including members of his own Democratic Party, in general did not support the idea, because they realized for example, that the President was already suffering from memory loss. That affected his capacity to continue to rule the country.  When the Americans asked Biden to take his retirement, it I was not that they hated him, it was rather that they placed the interest of the country first.  What more of a President in the 90s! As a patriot, President Biden also listened to the people, for the interest of the country.

Constitutional Council Says It Is Incompetent

Meanwhile, when Cameroon’s Constitutional Council which has as President, Clement Atangana, met in open session on January 13, 2026, it embarrassingly  evaded  to examine Prof Oliver Bile’s petition to remove President Biya from office for lack of physical and mental capacity to rule, on the pretext that the Council does not have the competence to handle the matter.  If the Constitutional Council of the land, can say that it does not have the competence, to handle such a matter, then which other institution in the country can do it? It thus means that, no institution in the country has the competence or power to remove the President of the Republic from office, if it becomes very necessary to do so., for the interest of the country.

However, it is interesting that the Constitutional Council, did not as it commonly does, dismiss Prof Olivier Bile’s petition, which claimed that President Biya no longer had the physical and mental capacity to  rule Cameroon ,  on the ground that the claim was unfounded.  The Constitutional Council rather claimed that it did not have the competence to handle the petition.

New Gov’t Always Put In Place Soon After A Presidential Election

Meanwhile, political observers will definitely agree that there are several indicators, that lend some credence to the issue that was raised by the National President of ‘Les Liberateurs’,  Prof Olivier Bile, that 92 year old  President Biya, who will be 93 in March,  no longer has the  physical and mental capacity to rule  the country, due to his age.

For example, since the October 12, 2025 presidential election, President Biya has up till the moment of doing this report in the evening of Monday, January 19, 2026, not put a new place a new government, despite repeated promises.  Since   the rebirth of multiparty politics in Cameroon in 1990 – 91, with the first multiparty presidential election in October 1992, the current delay is unprecedented.  In fact since the rebirth of multiparty politics, presidential elections always hold in the country in the month of October, and President Biya had made it a tradition to always put in place a new government, or carryout a cabinet shakeup, before the end of the year of the election.  It was the case, after the 1992, 1997, 2004, and 2011 presidential elections.

After the October 11, 2004 presidential election for example, President put in place a new government   on December 8, 2004, with Chief Ephraim Inoni replacing Peter Mafany Musonge as Prime Minister. After the October 9, 2011 presidential election, President Biya either by design or coincidence carried out a cabinet shakeup on December 9, 2011. Biya did not instead appoint a new government, apparently because he did so barely two years before, when on June 30, 2009, he appointed Philemon Yang to replace Ephraim Inoni, as Prime Minister and Head of Government.

The First Delay To Appoint A New Government

A delay first occurred after the October 7, 2018 presidential election, when President Biya failed to appoint a new government before the end of that year. It was on January 4, 2019 that President Biya appointed a new government, with Chief Dr Joseph Dion Ngute replacing Philemon Yang as Prime Minister and ‘Head of Government’. It would be recalled that at the 2018 presidential election, there was already much criticism in the country over Paul Biya’s candidature, because of his advanced age and longevity in power.

National Assembly President Even Handed Biya A Pen, To Use To Form A New Gov’t

Meanwhile, at  the much advanced age of 92, President Biya  who has been in power for 43 years  that makes him the second longest serving  Head of State in Africa, and perhaps beyond,  has till date not appointed a new government or do a cabinet reshuffle, following the last presidential election which held on October 12, 2025. Many people, including several CPDM Communication Officers, had  after the official proclamation of the result of the  October 12, 2025 presidential election on October 27 by  the  Constitutional Council, followed by Biya’s swearing –in on November 6,  predicted a  more rapid appointment   of a new government by President Biya, most likely  before the end of that  month of November.

Many also thought that especially with the official result, which showed a comparatively mediocre performance by Biya at the October 12 presidential election, the President thought to had understood the message that was sent in the election by many disgruntled Cameroonians, would waste no time to appoint a new Government that can try to positively respond to the complaints or needs of the people, by carrying out concrete actions.

It would be recalled the President or Speaker of the National Assembly, Cavaye Yeguie Djibril, even handed President Biya a pen at the swearing –in ceremony on November 6, 2025/ The pen, as Cayaye himself suggested, was that Biya who was starting his eight mandate as President of the Republic, and doing so within the backdrop of so much socio-economic problems in the country, should use the pen to appoint a new government that will deliver on his campaign promises to the Cameroonian people.   But then November ended, December also came ended, with President Biya not having appointed the much awaited new government.  Some people are now making jokes on the social media, that the pen which the Speaker of  the National Assembly gave to President Biya to use to appoint a new Government, was stolen.

Unprecedented Delay To Put In Place A New Gov’t

This is in fact an unprecedented delay, or better still, the longest delay by President Biya to appoint a government, after a presidential election.   A lot of rumours or allegations have floated around, as the alleged reasons for the long delay. Some say with President Biya no longer in control of the situation, the different factions, camps or interest groups in the CPDM regime, have allegedly been fiercely fighting each other, in a bid to be the one to influence appointments into the much expected government.

The delay has become so long that  even Communication Officers of  the ruling CPDM, have  seemingly ran out of ideas or excuses to give,  as reasons for the long delay by President Biya to put in place a new government,  after the October 12, 2025 presidential election.  At one point the excuse was that the budgetary session was on at the National Assembly, and that President Biya considered it unwise to bring in new ministers during that period, as they would immediately have to go to parliament to defend a budget they knew nothing about.  But the budgetary session of parliament (November – December Session) had since ended.

On January 13, 2026, the Minister of Finance, Louis Paul Motaze, was even in Ngaoundere, Adamawa Region, to officially launch the 2026 budget.  Still, no mew government!  This means that the old government in place has, to start executing the new budget that should normally has been ben done by a new government.

End Of Year Address

In his end of year address to the nation on December 31, 2025, President Biya even went to the extent of making another promise to the Cameroonian people,  that the long awaited  new government, would be put in place, “dans les prochains jour”, that is, “in the coming days“.  Everybody thought that would be done within one week. But today is Tuesday, January 20, 2026, that is, 20 days later, or better still, almost 3 weeks later, and nothing has happened.  The appointment of the new government is still being awaited. President Biya’s “coming days” have become “coming weeks”, and perhaps will become “coming months”.  This is something that has  also helped to further discredit President Biya in the eyes of the public,  with many people saying it is another  clear indication that is no longer in charge. That due to his much advanced age, Biya seemingly lack the physically and mental capacity to continue to rule Cameroon, as Prof Oliver Bile has asserted.

New Gov’t Is Even Likely Not To Achieve Much

Without being prophets of doom,  some analysts are blunt that even the much expected new Government that President  Biya has promised to put in place to turn things round in the country, will not achieve much, or will end up not being different from the current government.  This is because as we have seen in the last couple of years, the absence of the President of the Republic, is, one of main causes of the laissez – faire attitude in government. In Cameroon, the President of the Republic is everything.  The title of Head of Government attached to the post of Prime Minister is just an empty shell.

In a presidential system of government like we have in Cameroon, the President of the Republic is like the Captain of the ship, and thus has to  be very active in coordinating  the functioning of the government , giving new orientations or directives , sanctioning defaulters (members of government), and so on. We see this in many countries around the world.  Even in a country like France where the President leaves some power to the Prime Minister, we still the President in action, each day.  The French people, like the Cameroonian people, elect the President of the Republic, and not the Prime Minister or ministers. The one big problem in Cameroon today is that President Biya is increasingly less and less active and present, because of his much advanced age that, has naturally affected his physical and mental capacity, as Prof Olivier Bile rightly says.

And so when the much expected new government will be appointed, the ministers will each start off enthusiastically trying to show the public how hard working the person can be.  But after a while, they will start changing. Seeing that the President is absent, the old bad attitudes of unscrupulousness, embezzlement, laissez-faire, corruption, lack of patriotism, laziness, self -centeredness, infighting, and so on, will creep into the government.

  GECAM Presses President Biya To Appoint New Gov’t

Meanwhile, the organization of big and medium size enterprises in Cameroon commonly known by the  French acronym GECAM (former GICAM), has after waiting in vain for the new Government that President Biya promised, finally come out to mount pressure on the the President of the Republic to appoint the much expected new government, which is hope  will work to revamp the economy of the country, that is in a mess. In a released issued on Monday, January 19, 2026, the President of GECAM, Celestin Tawamba, outlined some of the major expectations of the organization from the new government that President Biya is expected to appoint.  He did not only urged President Biya to appoint the much delayed government, but stressed GECAM’s expectation, which is that the new government should  be a real new government, that clearly reflects a rupture with the past governments that the President appointed. Thus, GECAM is waiting for real change in the appointment of members of the new government, comprised of competent, hardworking and God fearing people with the will to deliver, and not a cosmetic change with same old and failed members of government, in the name of a new government.